Mr. John McCarthy:

The decisions that have been made by the Government at this stage cover the period to the end of 2016. They cover the operating subvention and the capital contributions. Other elements within the figures to which the Chairman has referred are financing mechanisms or borrowings by Irish Water that will be repaid. The reality is that we are moving from an historically significantly underfunded water services system and the first step in the transition from that underfunded system to one that can be sustainable and can provide the type of infrastructure we need in an efficient and customer-friendly way is for the period to 2016 and to have an independent assessment through the Commission for Energy Regulation, CER, to establish what it costs to actually run the system properly and what should be the appropriate level of capital investment. The CER has gone through both of those exercises and, if one likes, they are the parameters within which Irish Water will work for the period to the end of 2016. There will be a further regulatory period for five years from 2017 to 2021 and that will set the parameters, both operationally and capital expenditure-wise, for that period and the business plan Irish Water is preparing fits in as a preparatory step for this regulatory period.